nom the puppetWed, Dec 3, 2008 I agree with your statements and you put them so succinctly, but I do believe that cynicism does or did provide a very useful role in our approach towards a beneficial future. Rampant indiscriminate cynicism would shun most advances in thought and would generate the collective symptoms you described, but intelligent skepticism or mild cynicism can actually steer progress away from troubled waters. Great optimism can and has lead to terrible things and the same is true for cynicism, but I believe that there is an optimum balance between the two political attitudes that if held widely enough among the population can ensure a smooth and steady transition through the singularity. I think you were getting at this when you mentioned non-foolish optimism supported by an intelligent examination of the evidence and the logically inferred consequences, and this is probably the most practical and ideal attitude to hold towards the future.
Cynicism, as a degree of skepticism, has served as a kind of protection or resilience for societies against harmful ideas that have the potential to permeate through it. It's kind of like the Collective's immune system. An overactive immune system like radical skepticism is destructive to the organism when it is infected with inefficient patterns of behavior and unfortunately also keeps out those potentially beneficial ideas along with the new bad ones, so gradually it refines itself towards more surgical methods of choosing which ideas to foster and which to guard against. Eventually an intelligent optimism will emerge from such a system if there is no coercion, but sadly there is. Nations, Mass media in the hands of private individuals, or any inequity of power among the population is an impediment towards the dissolution of blind cynicism. As long as the old powerful ideas have something to lose from the change, there will be resistance, but those that think will eventually learn to doubt the predominant cynical views of the community (assuming the intellectuals aren’t exiled). It’s when some small group has complete control over a population’s access to information that cynicism can thrive indefinitely.
So yeah, I totally agree that it’s political act.
But it’s also more than that. It’s the struggle between ideas for dominance in every avenue of knowledge among intelligent populations. Cynicism is just a skepticism of the future, of an individual's agency in it, of the value of life, or something similar(?). People naturally seem to become skeptical of the predominant views and even the methods and logics behind them, so they are forced to create a new one or resign themselves to living a meaningless life. That’s why science is so awesome and that’s why math is even more so because nothing else can compete with those two by way of logic, which has proven to be the most effective tool an organism can use in developing successful survival strategies. They are problem solving strategies emerged from trial and error life processes. It’s a self-improving learning system. Optimism is a direction towards an idea of life.
I agree with your statements and you put them so succinctly, but I do believe that cynicism does or did provide a very useful role in our approach towards a beneficial future. Rampant indiscriminate cynicism would shun most advances in thought and would generate the collective symptoms you described, but intelligent skepticism or mild cynicism can actually steer progress away from troubled waters. Great optimism can and has lead to terrible things and the same is true for cynicism, but I believe that there is an optimum balance between the two political attitudes that if held widely enough among the population can ensure a smooth and steady transition through the singularity. I think you were getting at this when you mentioned non-foolish optimism supported by an intelligent examination of the evidence and the logically inferred consequences, and this is probably the most practical and ideal attitude to hold towards the future.
Cynicism, as a degree of skepticism, has served as a kind of protection or resilience for societies against harmful ideas that have the potential to permeate through it. It's kind of like the Collective's immune system. An overactive immune system like radical skepticism is destructive to the organism when it is infected with inefficient patterns of behavior and unfortunately also keeps out those potentially beneficial ideas along with the new bad ones, so gradually it refines itself towards more surgical methods of choosing which ideas to foster and which to guard against. Eventually an intelligent optimism will emerge from such a system if there is no coercion, but sadly there is. Nations, Mass media in the hands of private individuals, or any inequity of power among the population is an impediment towards the dissolution of blind cynicism. As long as the old powerful ideas have something to lose from the change, there will be resistance, but those that think will eventually learn to doubt the predominant cynical views of the community (assuming the intellectuals aren’t exiled). It’s when some small group has complete control over a population’s access to information that cynicism can thrive indefinitely.
So yeah, I totally agree that it’s political act.
But it’s also more than that. It’s the struggle between ideas for dominance in every avenue of knowledge among intelligent populations. Cynicism is just a skepticism of the future, of an individual's agency in it, of the value of life, or something similar(?). People naturally seem to become skeptical of the predominant views and even the methods and logics behind them, so they are forced to create a new one or resign themselves to living a meaningless life. That’s why science is so awesome and that’s why math is even more so because nothing else can compete with those two by way of logic, which has proven to be the most effective tool an organism can use in developing successful survival strategies. They are problem solving strategies emerged from trial and error life processes. It’s a self-improving learning system. Optimism is a direction towards an idea of life.
Wow, that ramble got out of hand.